(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to acoustic arrays that are towed by ships in water. More particularly the invention deals with the arrangement of components within such an array so as to provide improved performance at less cost and bulk.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
In a typical fleet array configuration the conditioning and telemetry units, the hydrophones, and the preamplifiers are separately contained and are hard wired using a wiring harness. This tends to create acoustic noise scattering which interferes with what is normally a weak target signal that is to be detected. In addition, end caps are necessarily numerous and create additional source of interfering noise.